Chapter 4
‘How naive.’
Crouching atop the wall and looking down into the alley, Miriam thought,
‘Judging by her clothes, she looks like she’s from the East.’
No matter how ignorant she was of the ways of the world, surely she knew that people from the East weren’t treated kindly in foreign lands. Maybe she didn’t know because she was the child of a wealthy family, or perhaps her head was simply full of flowers.
The petite girl, who looked a head shorter than Miriam, was smiling serenely even as a gang radiating a thuggish air threatened her.
The apparent gang leader snickered as he muttered something or other. The men lined up behind him burst into laughter in response, and only then did the girl’s expression harden as she turned serious.
“You shouldn’t judge people by their appearance. I trusted him because he looked kind.”
‘…Huh?’
At the girl’s words, Miriam tilted her head without realizing it.
‘He looked kind? Who?’
Surely she didn’t mean that man.
That man with his unkempt, bristling beard and the vicious scar beside his eye—did she really think he looked kind?
That was a difficult joke to make, even as empty flattery.
But the girl’s expression was serious.
“What did you just say….”
‘I don’t know. I’ll rescue her first and think about it later.’
Miriam muttered inwardly, drew in a deep breath, and shouted at the top of her lungs.
“Hey, you guys over there!!”
She had been itching for a fight, since she hadn’t gotten to fight anyone even once since vacation began. Miriam immediately leaped down from the wall, planted one hand on the ground, and swung her leg up to lightly graze the thug’s chin.
A dull sound, far from anything light, rang out from the man’s chin as her rear foot struck it, but who cared? The villain who had tried to extort money from a girl from the East, ignorant of the ways of the world, lost consciousness and collapsed, while his gang fled in terror.
Once the situation was more or less settled, Miriam finally took a careful look at the girl’s face.
‘Cute.’
That was the first thought that came to mind the moment she saw the nameless girl from the East. Her jet-black hair, characteristic of people from the East, fell all the way to her waist, while her round features combined mature beauty with a youthful air.
‘Around my age… or younger?’
Judging by her small build and youthful appearance, she seemed to be about that age.
“By the way, were you serious about what you said earlier?”
“Yes?”
“The part about those guys looking kind. You were joking, right?”
“No?”
The girl answered in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone.
‘…Those aren’t the eyes of someone who’s lying.’
Miriam was bewildered. Was she ignorant of the ways of the world, or simply fearless? Or did she have some sort of disorder akin to face blindness?
“A-anyway.”
Just then, the girl spoke up.
“Could you perhaps tell me how to get to Magnus Academy?”
“Magnus Academy?”
When the girl asked for directions to Magnus Academy, Miriam suddenly grew curious and asked in return,
“Are you the transfer student who’s entering the third year this time?”
“Transfer student?”
“Ah, I heard a rumor that a transfer student from the East was coming… so I thought that might be you.”
But the girl shook her head, as if to say she wasn’t a transfer student.
‘Then is she a first-year?’
Miriam thought. Well, she did look quite young, so that seemed possible.
“Then are you perhaps a new student?”
“Ah, actually, it’s not that either….”
At Miriam’s question, the girl hesitated and averted her gaze. Then she carefully opened her mouth and said,
“…Excuse me. I’m late introducing myself.”
Then she reached into her clothes and pulled out an envelope.
“My name is Haru, and I’ll be serving as an instructor at Magnus Academy starting this year.”
=
“An instructor?!”
The girl’s eyes went wide as she cried out.
Then she began turning her head this way and that, unable to look me straight in the eye.
It was an obvious reaction from someone so flustered that she didn’t know what to do.
‘Oh dear…?’
Watching the girl fidget, I awkwardly scratched my head. This wasn’t the reaction I’d expected.
Not that I’d been looking for any particularly special reaction in the first place. I had merely told her that I was going to be an instructor, just so she knew.
…Or so I would have dismissed it, if the child in front of me weren’t a student at the academy.
No matter how many children of high-ranking nobles attended it, the academy was closer to a military academy—an educational institution where even teachers were addressed as ‘instructors.’
There was bound to be some sort of hierarchical relationship between students and instructors.
That was separate from my desire to be a teacher before being an instructor, just as my own teacher had been.
“Um, student?”
“Y-yes?”
“I don’t mind, so you can speak casually with me.”
But precisely because of that, I had to take the very first step carefully.
At the same eye level, side by side. I wasn’t exactly someone qualified to look down on anyone from above, after all.
“R-really…?”
“You don’t have to use honorifics, either, if it makes you uncomfortable.”
I urged the girl once more.
I meant that sincerely, too. Since I hadn’t met anyone younger than me or lower in status than me for fifteen years, casual speech itself had become awkward.
What others said to me was usually either informal or honorific, while one hundred percent of what I said was in polite speech.
Honestly, I sometimes wondered whether there was any need to change even that, and it was also true that I didn’t particularly care. Besides, wouldn’t polite speech be better than casual speech anyway?
“Really…?”
I silently nodded.
As the girl stared intently at me, tears suddenly welled up in the corners of her eyes.
“Waaah!!”
“Whoa.”
“I’m glad this instructor is a kind person too…!”
“Ah, ahaha….”
‘This’ instructor? That sounds ominous somehow.
I smiled awkwardly and stiffly patted the back of the girl who had thrown her arms around me.
I was shorter than her, and I wasn’t used to comforting anyone to begin with. So I racked my brain for memories from my previous life and asked the girl in an awkward tone,
“Um, what’s your name, student?”
‘Oops, was that too nosy?’
What was I doing, calling her student? I hadn’t even officially taken up my post yet.
No, wait. I was going to be working as an instructor starting this year, so surely it was all right to call her a student…?
Fortunately, contrary to my concerns, the girl scratched her cheek and answered shyly, trailing off at the end.
“Miriam. I’m moving up to the third-year practical class….”
“The practical class? That’s impressive.”
Magnus Academy was an academy that championed meritocracy as thoroughly as its achievements and reputation suggested.
From the first year onward, it divided students into lower, intermediate, and advanced classes according to their entrance examination results. Starting in the third year, it added a new rank called the ‘practical class,’ one level above the advanced class, to further distinguish the students.
The practical class followed its own curriculum, separate from those of the other three ranks, and its students spent only half as many days attending classes at the academy as students in the other classes.
Then where and what did they do during the other half of their class time?
Outside the academy, they carried out missions within the kingdom’s borders that were normally performed by formally appointed magic knights.
In effect, they were deployed on actual missions just like official magic knights, a system sometimes referred to as the ‘apprentice knight program.’
There was one difference, however: students undergoing the apprentice knight program were assigned one ‘designated instructor’ per class of four.
A designated instructor was an instructor tasked with assisting students during missions, providing feedback after a mission was completed, and dealing with unforeseen crises… or so the setting went.
‘That was in the original story. Though I’m not sure I remember the details correctly.’
“I hope you become my designated instructor, Teacher Haru.”
Miriam clung to both my hands and wheedled. We hadn’t even known each other for an hour, yet she was incredibly quick to warm up.
‘She’s like a giant capybara.’
I tilted my head at Miriam, who was clinging to me.
“We don’t know what will happen yet, you know? Only my appointment as an instructor has been confirmed. My specific post hasn’t even been decided….”
“Still, I don’t think there’ll be anyone else.”
“I hope so too.”
“No, that’s not what I meant….”
The girl pulled away from me and said with her face slightly flushed,
“I picked a fight with every other instructor, so… no instructor wants to take charge of me anymore.”
“…Yes?”
Had I heard her wrong?
“That’s why all the other instructors hate me. So the chances of Instructor Haru being assigned as my designated instructor are….”
“W-wait a moment. What did you say you did to the other instructors?”
I asked the girl, blinking repeatedly.
The girl stared at me, then belatedly seemed to realize how embarrassing it was. Her bashful face flushed bright red, and she turned her head away.
“Ehehe. N-no, let me explain how that happened.”
Too late, you brat.
Don’t turn away with a red face. Why are you acting shy about saying you beat someone up?
“I-I do have an excuse, you know?!”
Seeing my expression frozen stiff, Miriam hurriedly began offering excuses.
“…I just like fighting, that’s all. That’s why I enrolled at the academy.”
Though she sounded shy, there was a faintly gloomy quality to Miriam’s voice as she spoke quietly.
“I only challenged them to spar. But everyone kept refusing, so I….”
“…Don’t tell me you challenged them to fight and beat them senseless without giving them a chance to say anything.”
“E, eheh. Strictly speaking, I didn’t beat them senseless. I was the one who got beaten.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I answered while rubbing the back of my neck, which had somehow grown stiff.
“So, about that.”
Miriam looked up at me hesitantly. She was a head taller than me, so I wondered how she could be looking up at me like that, but when I shifted my gaze to the side, I saw her legs bent in a half-crouch.
We had only met thirty minutes ago, yet I had the unsettling feeling that I already knew more than eighty percent about this girl named Miriam. It felt like dealing with a capybara in human skin.
As expected, Miriam said to me in the most matter-of-fact tone,
“Spar with me just once.”
“…Ugh.”
“I’ll guide you to the academy, too. Really fast—no, the fastest way possible. Okay?”
What kind of character was this? I felt my mind growing hazy at this battle-crazed capybara character, seemingly stamped out of a mold to remind me once again that this was the world of a novel.
I let out a groan while subtly avoiding Miriam’s gaze.
‘I haven’t even officially taken up my post yet. Wouldn’t it cause trouble if I just accepted a request like this on the spur of the moment…?’
First of all, Miriam seemed to be a serious battle maniac, however one looked at her.
On top of that, she had what you might call a reckless, no-brakes personality. Combining the two, she was probably the sort of girl who charged headlong at students and instructors alike without thinking, earning their lasting resentment—in somewhat cold terms, a child with rather poor social intelligence.
…But why? I saw myself in Miriam when I had first transmigrated into this world.
Wasn’t she much like me in being cut off from the world and unable to fit in anywhere? Unlike me, who had expressed my displeasure to the outside world without restraint, Miriam hid her loneliness behind her cheerfulness.
I didn’t go so far as to feel that I couldn’t leave her alone. Miriam and I had known each other for less than thirty minutes, after all. We were practically strangers—no, we simply were strangers.
But for some reason, I kept thinking that I didn’t want to leave her alone.
I suddenly thought of Rex. I remembered the face of that boy with dull blond hair buzzed short, who had spoken to twelve-year-old me the moment he saw me.
…Right. Once I took up my post as an instructor, I’d be seeing her one way or another, whether I became her designated instructor or not.
I opened my mouth, convincing myself that there was no need to make an enemy of her.
“…Yes, all right. That’s not too much to ask.”
“Really?!”
Miriam’s eyes sparkled as she rejoiced as if she might leap into the air. The hand she had seized began moving vigorously up and down. The bouncing of her breasts made my Cooper’s ligaments ache.
I quickly asked Miriam,
“Anyway! Could you guide me to the academy first?”
“Got it!”
Miriam nodded energetically.
“Thank you. You can just lead the way, and I’ll follow….”
“Hup.”
Before I could finish speaking, Miriam reached out, picked me up, and lifted me into the air.
“W-whaaat…?!”
The position commonly known as a princess carry.
To be held in such a humiliating position at my age. A surge of instinctive shame washed over me, but Miriam held me firmly as if she didn’t care in the slightest about my circumstances and shouted,
“Then we’re off, Teacher! Hold tight!”
“M-Miss Miriam! Wait──”
-Whooosh!!!
Before I could finish speaking, Miriam kicked off the ground and leaped high into the sky.
As the fierce wind whipped my eyebrows, I regretted, just a little, ever agreeing to this in the first place.